In waste heat utilization devices, which are based on the principle of a Rankine cycle process or a Rankine-Clausius cycle process, evaporators are employed with the help of which the working medium of the cycle process can be evaporated, for the purpose of which the heat required for that is extracted from the exhaust gas of an internal combustion engine. Accordingly, such an evaporator on the one hand comprises a gas path for the exhaust gas and on the other hand an evaporation path for the working medium to be evaporated.
Such an evaporator can be configured for example as a plate heat exchanger and accordingly comprise multiple channel plate arrangements, which are stacked in a stacking direction, wherein in each case between two adjacent plate arrangements a gas path is formed, through which a gas can be conducted, via which the heat required for evaporating the liquid can be supplied. The respective channel plate arrangement in this case can practically contain a liquid inlet, a vapor outlet and a channel connecting the liquid inlet to the vapor outlet, which channel for example forms a repeatedly diverted evaporation path for the liquid to be evaporated.